The Internet enables a user of a client computer system to identify and communicate with millions of other computer systems located around the world. A client computer system can identify each of these other computer systems using a unique numeric identifier for that computer called an “IP address.” When a communication is sent from a client computer system to a destination computer system, the client computer system typically specifies the IP address of the destination computer system in order to facilitate the routing of the communication to the destination computer system. For example, when a request for a World Wide Web page (“Web page”) is sent from a client computer system to a Web server computer system (“Web server”) from which that Web page can be obtained, the client computer system typically includes the IP address of the Web server.
In order to make the identification of destination computer systems more mnemonic, a Domain Name System (DNS) has been developed that translates a unique alphanumeric name for a destination computer system into the IP address for that computer. Using domain names, a user attempting to communicate with this computer system could specify a destination of “comp23.example.com” rather than the particular IP address of the computer system (e.g., 198.81.209.25).
The alphanumeric name is called a “domain name.” For example, the domain name for a hypothetical computer system operated by Example Corporation may be “exampleco.com”. “Exampleco.com” may be considered a brand domain name as it includes the name of the company. In other examples, the brand domain name may include a string of characters, word, term, phrase, tradename, trademark, product name, service name, dba, etc., that may identify or otherwise reflect the company. The brand domain name may include, together with the TLD and a brand domain, for example, “exampleco”, one or more lower-level domains for different pages within the brand website. In the example above, “shoes.exampleco.com”, “shoes” may be a lower-level domain. Thus, a user seeking to access information related to shoes may understand that by entering the domain name “shoes.exampleco.com”, the user is accessing information related to shoes based on the lower-level domain included in the domain name.